


Just Like Us

by wjmoon (sodapeach)



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Fluff, M/M, Secret Relationship, gym teacher!seungyoun, lit teacher!wooseok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22852645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodapeach/pseuds/wjmoon
Summary: While Seungyoun is teaching a PE class, he notices a pair of students who remind him of two other familiar people.
Relationships: Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun/Kim Wooseok | Wooshin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 203





	Just Like Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hydrangeaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydrangeaan/gifts).



> Thank you so much to @hydrangeaan for the support! I hope you enjoy this :3

Seungyoun paced the gym with the whistle between his teeth watching the students run back and forth in small sprints miserably as the sounds of their squeaking sneakers echoed against the metal bleachers.

He let out a short puff signaling them to turn around, and most of them did with ease, but one of the students, less athletic than the others, tripped over his own feet and hit the ground with a loud smack that could have only been from his own skin against the floor.

He was smaller than the others, and Seungyoun never  _ really  _ made him participate more than he had to because for some reason something about him reminded him of a piece of his past even if he couldn’t put his finger on it. He hissed and the whistle fell out of his mouth and swung down to his chest as he jogged over to make sure he was ok.

He wasn’t supposed to react too much in these instances, but the boy just laid there helplessly like an injured deer, and it wasn’t until another student ran over to him that he realized who he reminded him of. 

The other student, popular and on the soccer team if he remembered correctly, rushed over to him. It was a little dramatic and probably unnecessary, but the visage brought back a distant memory that put butterflies in Seungyoun’s stomach.

He was only fifteen at the time and just as excited about everything as this kid was, and he loved sports even more. But like the injured student on the floor, not everyone was so fond of running around. Some people were just as delicate and clumsy and needed to be protected and looked out for.

They were both fifteen and in a gym not as nice as this one. It smelled like rubber and mildew most of the time, and the asthmatics always had the worst time of it. He was in the middle of an intense game of dodgeball, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, when out of the corner of his eye he saw someone on his team who he didn’t know very well caught in the crossfire of a very large, red rubber ball.

A young Seungyoun lunged to the side and caught it before it could smash the poor little guy in the face who had his arms in front of his face and one of his legs up to brace himself for impact. The slap of the rubber against Seungyoun’s hands (that was thrown a little too deliberately in his opinion) made the other guy shriek in fear, but when the pain didn’t follow, he looked up confused.

“Thanks,” he said, registering that he had been saved by one of his teammates. 

He reminded Seungyoun of a cornered alley cat with glasses perched crookedly on his nose, and he had half a mind to straighten them for him, but he couldn’t just go around touching people like that out of the blue. 

“No problem,” he said, throwing the ball back across the other side and nailing the kid who threw it originally right in the butt cheek.

“I hate dodgeball,” the other guy grumbled, planting his feet firmly onto the gym floor and crouching like he was  _ ready.  _ He was  _ not  _ ready, and Seungyoun thought it was adorable.

“It’s not so bad if you make an alliance,” he said. “Get behind me.”

“What, why?” He asked as he looked up at him with the most impossibly large eyes.

“I don’t know,” he laughed.  _ Because you’re pretty. _

But that was a different time, and this time Seungyoun was the cruel gym teacher and not the student rushing to another’s rescue. 

The taller student scooped up the injured one off of his back and helped him sit up.

“Sorry, Mr. Cho,” he said, rubbing at a swollen ankle.

He squatted down next to him and squeezed it. The student winced, and he frowned. “I think you need to go to the nurse.”

“I’m okay,” he lied.  _ Just like him too. _

“Still,” Seungyoun said. “You should go anyway just in case you aren’t fine later.”

The student nodded and tried to stand up, but he couldn’t do it on his own. That gave Seungyoun an idea. He turned towards the student that reminded him of someone else both cheerful and athletic and asked him for help. “Can you take him?”

“Sure,” he said brightly.

“Oh, that’s ok,” the injured student stuttered.

“No, no,” Seungyoun and the other student said at the same time, helping him to his feet. 

“I can carry you,” he said shyly. “You’re not very big.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said with a flustered laugh.

Seungyoun bit down a smile watching them. It was all too  _ painfully  _ familiar. 

After some awkward arm coordination between the two of them, they eventually figured out how to walk together, and watching them gave Seungyoun such a big burst of warm and fuzzies that he almost cancelled the rest of the class so he could lie down on the floor and weep.

But he couldn’t do that. They had some more running to do.

He lifted up the whistle that hung around his neck and gave it a long, loud blow. “Okay, kids, let’s go again!”

He was met with a chorus of groans, but they lined up on the edge of the room anyways and resumed running to the rhythm of his whistle puffs.

At the end of class, he knew he had about fifteen minutes left before the next wave of students came in so if he wanted to run the errand he had been thinking about since the injury happened, he had to be quick.

But first, he stopped by a shiny window and smoothed his hair away from his forehead to freshen himself up so to speak before practically running across the campus and messing it back up again pointlessly.

The building he needed to get to was on the other side of the school, and he needed to run up the stairs to the third floor once he got there to find the room he wanted.

The halls were clear and student free, but he couldn’t run anymore because then everyone in the building would hear his own squeaky shoes echoing, but he had just enough time to do this one thing without needing to rush.

He found the room he was looking for and peeked through the window to make sure it was empty. The teacher who occupied it was eating alone at his desk, focused on his phone.

_ Literature teacher with a mobile game addiction. Who would believe it? _

Seungyoun knocked on the door, startling him like the cat he was, but he waved brightly once he realized it was him and got up to unlock the door.

“What are you doing here,” he whispered.

“Can I not visit my friend at work,” he whispered back.

Wooseok blushed and opened the door all the way to let him in. “You work here too.”

“I know, but I’m off for the next few minutes,” he said.

“And  _ friend _ ,” Wooseok scoffed. “Is that what I am?”

“You’re so worried about us getting caught, what if a student heard me call you my husband? Hmm?”

“You’re right, I forgot,” he said. “Do you want a snack?”

“I have one,” he wiggled his eyebrows before kissing him on the side of the mouth. Wooseok brushed him off, but didn’t stop him from leaving three more quick kisses before he sat back on the desk.

Wooseok wrinkled his nose. “You stink.”

He gasped. “Me? Stink?”

He nodded. “You smell like sweat.”

Seungyoun frowned and lifted his collar up to his nose. “Oh, it must have been from when I had to help get the student up.”

“What student? Did someone get hurt?”

“This kid twisted his ankle,” he said. “I think he’ll be fine though.”

Wooseok hummed. “Some people aren’t cut out for gym class.”

“Oh?” Seungyoun smirked. “Oh, speaking of people who aren’t cut out for gym class, I swear this kid looked just like you, and this other kid ran to his rescue like a champ. Remember when we first met and I saved you from taking a ball to the face? It was just like that.”

“You did not  _ save me _ ,” he rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “Also why do I feel like I just got insulted like three times?”

“Then why did you spend the rest of the class clinging onto me like you did,” Seungyoun pointed out.

“Because I thought you were hot.”

Seungyoun covered his face and blushed. “Stop, I’m embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?!” Wooseok laughed. “We’re supposed to be married, what are you embarrassed about?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly as Wooseok approached him. Wooseok glanced at the door to make sure it was clear before leaning in and leaving a long and soft kiss on his lips. Seungyoun let out a deep sigh and pulled him toward him so he could place his hands around his waist.

“Remember our first kiss,” Wooseok asked quietly.

“It was a few months later wasn’t it,” he asked. “Under the bleachers.”

“Mhm,” he said. “Right before your first game of the season.”

“I was so nervous I scored a goal on the wrong side of the field,” Seungyoun laughed. “The other team was thrilled.”

Wooseok hung his head and smiled. “I didn’t know you liked me that much then. I just thought it would help.”

“How was it supposed to help if I didn’t like you,” he teased.

“I’ve been told that my kisses are lucky,” he said matter of factly.

“By who?” Seungyoun scowled. “It's only been me. Who’ve you been kissin’? Who said that?”

Wooseok hit him playfully on the chest with no force at all. “Oh my god, you said that! I hate you.”

He smiled brightly and gave Wooseok a kiss on the nose. “Your kisses are lucky.”

“You’re so annoying today,” he said. 

“I’m in a mood,” Seungyoun sighed.

“But those kids,” Wooseok said, raising his hand up to match Seungyoun’s height. “Is one of them kind of tall and happy all the time.”

“Yeah,” he said. 

“He’s in my class and spends most of the time staring at this smaller kid with glasses,” Wooseok said.

“That’s them!” Seungyoun whispered excitedly. “Oh my god.”

Wooseok’s eyes shifted. “Should I…”

“Should you… what?”

“Stick them on a group project together?” 

Seungyoun gasped. “You can do that?”

“I’m their teacher,” Wooseok said, baffled.

“Oh, right.”

“You’re so...,” he said as he rubbed his temples. “Okay, I’ll just make the class get together in partners and assign them myself so they have to work together.”

“This is so exciting,” Seungyoun clapped. “Who do you think is going to make the first move? We should make a bet.”

“It’s obviously the one with the glasses,” Wooseok said. “If history repeats itself.”

“How was I supposed to ask you out when all you did was talk about what a good friend I was?” Seungyoun pouted.

“That was me flirting,” he said.

Seungyoun blinked and was about to argue with him when the bell rang, and he realized he was on the wrong side of campus. 

“I have to go,” he pouted before giving Wooseok a quick kiss and running out the door before any students could see them.

“Bye!” Wooseok called after him. 

On his way back, he saw the two students hobbling together towards Wooseok’s classroom. Both had a distinctive flush to their cheeks that he recognized too, and he could only hope that Wooseok’s plan worked as well for these two kids as it had for them.

  
  


At the end of the day, Wooseok made his way across campus towards the gym where Seungyoun would have been sorting out all the inventory before he could go home. Part of his job was to make sure all of the sports equipment was put back in case one of the teams needed to practice after school since they shared everything with the general P.E. class.

His steps were quicker and lighter than usual as he was eager to report the results of his impulse change in lesson plans. Yes, this meant that he would have to stay up and figure out how to balance a group project that should have been sorted out months in advance, but it was worth it because seeing their faces when they had to sit together was priceless

The two boys came in holding onto each other as he expected they would have which confirmed his suspicions that he knew exactly which two students Seungyoun was talking about. 

The taller one helped the one in glasses to his seat before taking his own towards the back, and that’s when Wooseok made the announcement .

The class groaned, but it wasn’t about them. This was about the ancient and delicate art of matchmaking, and he wouldn’t let a few grumpy naysayers keep two obviously smitten puppies away from each other.

After they sat together, Wooseok kept looking over his shoulder as he taught his lesson to see how they were doing. The taller one was much more vocal (in an academic way) than usual, answering questions he knew confidently while the one in glasses stared at him in awe instead of at the board. 

The way his eyes sparkled and the way he couldn’t stop smiling every time the other spoke reminded Wooseok of himself when he followed Seungyoun around everywhere when they were younger. He still followed him around everywhere, but that was mostly because Seungyoun  _ dragged  _ him everywhere. If they weren’t at school, they had free range to be as touchy as they wanted, and Seungyoun always took advantage of that. 

But even if he let him go, Wooseok still would have followed him everywhere.

_ Get behind me,  _ a young Seungyoun had said, putting himself between a young Wooseok and danger.

_ Why? _

_ Because he’s my husband. _ Wooseok smiled to himself, answering the question that Seungyoun never had. He never needed to.

He found Seungyoun placing bundles of ropes on a shelf, and since the room was otherwise empty, he snuck up behind him and wrapped his arms around his chest and pressed his cheek against his back.

“I thought you said I stink,” Seungyoun said, not needing to look back to see who it was.

“You do, but I wanted to hug you,” Wooseok said.

Seungyoun turned around and wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer. “So hug me.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he said before dropping his head down on his shoulder and breathing Wooseok in.

“You know the day we met,” he said. “You said for me to get behind you, and I asked why. Why did you do that?”

“Because I thought about you getting hurt, and didn’t want to get suspended for punching someone in the face,” Seungyoun said.

“But you didn’t know me.”

“And it would have been a lot harder to get to know you if I had been suspended,” he teased, leaving a kiss on his neck. “I thought you were pretty.”

“Pretty?” He laughed.

“What? You know you’re pretty.”

“I was just a scrawny kid in gym class,” Wooseok said. 

“Now look at you,” he said before lifting his chin up and kissing him softly on the mouth. Wooseok wrapped his arms around his neck and pushed himself up on his toes to return it. 

“You called me your friend,” Wooseok pouted.

Seungyoun winced. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to! Please, don’t be upset. I’ve been so sick about that all day.”

“No, I told you to,” he said to reassure him. “But I hope one day I can tell the whole world how great my husband is and how I met him in gym class because he saved me from a very nasty game of dodgeball.”

“And I would do it again,” he said, kissing him on the nose. “Now let’s go home so we can take a shower.”

“We?” Wooseok laughed.

“ _ You _ said I stink so I think it’s only fair that  _ you  _ make me smell better.”

Wooseok shook his head and rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say no. How could he? He was his husband, and husbands had special lathering privileges.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I really hope you liked it! Please let me know what you think!


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